Major League Baseball’s most unlikely streak silently came to an end, yesterday among little fanfare, publicity, or hoopla.
A simple swing of the bat on an outside pitch for strike three marked the closure of unparalleled success that had run its course over a remarkable five-year span.
Texas’ reliever Joaquin Benoit threw a pitch outside that Los Angeles Angels’ Vlad "the Impaler" Guerrero, just couldn’t resist, forcing him to put up an O-fer for the first time ever in his career against the Rangers while wearing a Halo.
On April 6, 2008, the Los Angeles Angels played the Texas Rangers, and Guerrero had batted four times, had zero hits, zero runs, and one strikeout.
His hitting streak ended at 44 games.
The streak, itself, was so unusual and obscure that fans outside of the AL West probably had never even known of its existence.
But to fans of both the Rangers and the Angels, the reality is this streak will probably not be duplicated for a long time to come.
Since becoming an Angel in 2004, Guerrero has had his share of success against Texas' pitching. He absolutely feasted on whatever the Rangers threw his way (pun intended).
Guerrero has enjoyed playing Texas so much that if you project his numbers to a typical 162 game season, he would be a frontrunner for MVP year in and year out.
The chart below shows his totals to date and projected over what would equate to a season long average.
| Year | G | AB | R | H | 2B | 3B | HR | RBI | BB | K | AVG | OBP | SLG | OPS |
| 2004 | 18 | 74 | 16 | 32 | 5 | 0 | 8 | 14 | 5 | 9 | 0.432 | 0.475 | 0.824 | 1.299 |
| 2005 | 18 | 68 | 16 | 30 | 9 | 0 | 5 | 15 | 11 | 3 | 0.441 | 0.513 | 0.794 | 1.307 |
| 2006 | 18 | 69 | 15 | 29 | 3 | 0 | 7 | 16 | 8 | 9 | 0.420 | 0.487 | 0.768 | 1.255 |
| 2007 | 17 | 63 | 9 | 22 | 7 | 0 | 1 | 13 | 11 | 5 | 0.349 | 0.453 | 0.508 | 0.961 |
| 2008 | 3 | 12 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0.250 | 0.250 | 0.250 | 0.500 |
| Totals | 74 | 286 | 56 | 116 | 24 | 0 | 21 | 58 | 35 | 27 | 0.406 | not enough data to calculate | ||
| Projected Annual | 162 | 626 | 123 | 254 | 53 | 0 | 46 | 127 | 77 | 59 | 0.406 | not enough data to calculate | ||
Skipper Ron Washington has made it a priority to approach Guerrero's batting as if the season were hinging upon it.
An infield and outfield shift has shown improvement, as last year’s numbers indicate, but not until yesterday had the shift in philosophy been so successful.
An 0-4 day would not merit much consideration if this were any other player against any other team. But that strikout yesterday was not indicative of a typical day’s performance.
It marked the end to a most impressive streak.
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